For those of you who hire/hired interns and/or those of you who did one (or more) or had children who did, when do companies start getting back to students regarding their applications? Thanks!
When I was hiring interns we had a pretty much regular schedule; Collect resumes until Christmas, call the perspective candidates January and February, make selections soon after completing all the phone interviews, then inform the students by about April 1.
But not all companies are the same. My daughter had just about given up getting an internship one year (this was between her sophomore and junior year) when she got a phone interview in JUNE!!! Her school finished up the end of May, so she was already back home when she got the call.
In general, I would think the larger companies better know their budgets for interns and will call and set things up sooner rather than later.
Thanks Puck. I was thinking now until Spring Break was likely the prime notification window, but a few of his friends already have positions nailed down. He has a fallback that’s always open to him, but he’d rather try other areas to see if they stick.
My two MechE internships 30+ years ago were with a big corporation, and I think had my offers around Feb. These days summer hiring (at least a first pass) can be even earlier than that.
For DS, it got earlier as he had more experience (engineering skills and job hunting skills). During Freshman year, summer research offer was in April. During Sophomore year he didn’t do the Christmas break job search we encouraged, but he did get a job offer in late March. When he wanted to do Junior/spring semester abroad we said… “not unless you get a summer job offer by the November decision point”… He did.
Nice!
He put out a lot of applications, but largely to competitive positions (JPL, Oculus, Tesla, Sandia, HRL, NASA, etc.). He figured they were going to draw top applicants, but that volume could help mitigate some of that. He hasn’t heard back from anyone yet, but didn’t start in earnest until Christmas break and he missed a few deadlines, Boeing for example, by simply not knowing they’d cut off so early. He’s a pretty good applicant (3.8+, Pi Tau Sigma, a Tau Beta Pi, heavily involved in a Formula SAE, has a campus job with AV and had a previous summer internship) so I’ve reassured him that it’s likely a little early in the process and to be patient. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t lying. 
In general, you will start to have interview requests trickle in from small companies very shortly after applying, then you will hear back from ALL of the big companies in just about the same 1-2 month span. Big important companies have an HR process and they just end up all coming together at the same time. Usually the big dates are November, Jan-Feb, and April-May for big company recruitment.
Thanks!
On top of that, I think I should say that there is quite a lot of randomness in recruiting and an application can be tossed for the most trivial of reasons. He should keep applying because you don’t have an internship/job until you have it in writing.
@eyemgh My DD is a second year engineering major at Georgia Tech and this is how it worked for her this year. In September, GT had its career fairs (not only the one for the college in general, but several that are major specific or for women in engineering). She applied by giving her resume directly to the companies and online following the recruiters suggestions. She started getting interviews in September and through the third week of October. She interviewed with 11 companies of various sizes and geographic locations (she continued to get interview requests, but turned them down since she had already accepted an offer for this summer and didn’t want to prevent her fellow students from job opportunities). She ended up with five job offers from her September job hunt and accepted an internship this summer with a major corporation. She was done with her summer internship application/interview process by October. Since she was wanting a co-op position for the fall, she tried to negotiate some of her job offers to switch from summer to fall, but that was unsuccessful.
During the third week of October she attended the national conference for the Society of Women Engineers and its accompanying career fair. Companies there told her that they were mainly looking to fill summer internship positions, but a few companies decided to interview her for Fall 2016 internships/co-op positions. She was successful in receiving an offer for Fall 2016 with a company she really liked (a major corporation with offices all over the country). As her parent I am happy that her job situation was settled by October 2015 for the next year and she is making enough money to help with her tuition bills. I know at the SWE conference, her fellow GT students received lots of job offers for summer positions.
Please forgive me since I don’t want to sound like a jerk, but I actually think son is not “a little early in the process” for the companies that he is targeting. I know that Tesla, Sandia and NASA were recruiting at Georgia Tech in the fall for their summer positions and that my DD’s friends received summer internship offers from those companies back then. Like you mentioned, Boeing interviewed students in Sept. and October for their summer internship positions. and reported to my DD that they had filled them. Most of my DD’s friends at GT already have offers for this summer and I have found this true for most of her engineering friends from our hometown. Her ME second year friend at University of Washington is working for SpaceX this summer and got his offer in October and her other CS friend at Purdue got his offer from Yelp for this summer back in November (making $44 an hour by the way!!). This employment scenario for summer seems to be true at many other universities. Recently my DD received an email from her summer employer directed at the summer interns and my DD shared with me that the students were from colleges all over the country (e.g. Oklahoma U, Vanderbilt, NC State, etc.)
However hope for a competitive summer engineering internship is not all lost at this time. My DD too is on an SAE team and two weeks ago JPL visited her team and solicited resumes from the students for summer positions. I would have your son focus on them. Do companies solicit resumes from the SAE team members at your son’s college? My DD’s team gets inquiries all the time (in fact her lead position on the team is why I think she did so well in the job market) so have your son check with his team. If I remember correctly, Toyota was just with the team too soliciting resumes. Also my DD’s summer employer is coming to town to take the interns out to dinner next month and in the email the recruiter asked the students to pass along the names of any potential summer interns since they had a few positions to still fill. I think at this stage networking may play a part in your son getting a summer internship with the major corporations.
Georgia Tech had its second major career fair of the year in January, however I noticed it was for a lot less companies (just 200 versus the 600 on campus in the fall). Plus it seemed at this time of the year the career fair was more for the non-engineering majors. Has your son participated in his on-campus career fair? GT’s career office continually updates its listings so I suggest your son check with his college career office. I don’t know what field of engineering is your son’s major, but I know some of the associations for the particular majors are having conferences and that could be an area for additional job hunting. For example, ASME is hosting a regional conference in March and a job fair for college students is listed as part of it.
With your son’s stats and activities, I am sure he would have received offers from some of the companies you listed if he had started with the process back in September. Frankly as a non-engineer I was shocked at how early these companies interview for summer positions. The two weeks of the career fair were a flurry of activity according to my DD- the companies were out “wining and dining” the students with all kinds of on-campus activities (movies, bowling, special dinners, tailgates, etc.). I found it funny that GM sent a fleet of new GM vehicles and for a week drove them around GT offering rides to the students as part of their recruitment process. The most surprising thing to me was when the company that my DD will be working for this summer gave her a brand new Macbook at the end of her interview to thank her for flying to them to interview with them!!
The good thing for your son is that engineering jobs are in demand, he just may have to set his sights on different companies. Fortunately he has a fall back position for this summer. I do encourage him to start a bit earlier next year for the following summer. Good luck to him!!
@itsv, never claimed this: “a little early in the process”. In fact, after he started, thinking he was getting a jump, he realized he was already late. With that said, LOTS of places are still posting, even today. He’s hoping something comes up. He does go to the career fairs. Fingers crossed. He’ll certainly start earlier this year. Thanks!
Companies all have their own recruiting schedule. You most certainly will have missed some opportunities by now but there are more than enough other high quality opportunities to go around.
My son’s experience is that many of the companies he contacted made decisions on summer interns before Thanksgiving. Seems nuts to me.
I think lots do, be he didn’t know it at the time. He does now.
There are plenty of intern ads out there still now. My son applied to GoPro and they just emailed back that they are still working on applications and will contact applicants in another week or two.
When we went to Parent’s Weekend freshman year, we attended an information session that included parents from all years. Today I remembered that the “upperclassman parents” said they had kids that had gotten their summer job answer in April…even May. They said smaller companies don’t have a good enough picture of projects/funding to recruit early.
Thanks!
If he has not already done so, he should make sure to get some apps (and maybe even unsolicited resume/cover letters) to some small firms in home town too. He has great qualifications.
He has a standing invitation to at the firm he interned with last summer. He enjoyed it, but knows in the long run he doesn’t want to do structure related (HVAC, lighting, fire protection, etc.) engineering. So, he’s on the prowl. He unknowingly started late though. He already knows for next year. With a busy course schedule, Formula SAE, his job and trying to get some exercise and sleep, he’s still working on applications. Each one though takes about 30 minutes. He’ll get something for sure. He’s just not sure what yet. Thanks!
@eyemgh Has you son consulted with his school’s Career Service department? They should be familiar with companies that hire students from his program.
Thanks, he has and has been very active with applications. He just got a late start even though at the time had thought he was early. His first clue was finding Boeing apps closed. I was just curious when he might start hearing back based on others past experience.